thread and chains
by PerfectPerception
Summary: Sleeping Beauty & Lady and the Tramp. Oliver always preferred the latter movie to the former. — OliverLilly; OliverMiley


**Notes:** This story doesn't have a set time period so it goes in and out of the past. And it explores both Oliver/Lilly and Oliver/Miley pairings with separate Disney movie themes, so if you're fairly familiar with _Sleeping Beauty _and _Lady and the Tramp_, you'll probably understand the general theme of the one-shot better. Also, its written in a slightly more vague, abstract way, which may make it harder to understand, but nonetheless, I do hope you enjoy it (:

...

The fresh boy - sixteen and young and polished - stares the dragon straight in the eye.

Everyone has monsters after them, figuratively and literally. For Oliver Oken and Lillian Truscott, this monster comes in the physical form of an awkward boy their age. He's advancing towards the blonde maiden, with a look of determination in his gleaming, shifty eyes, and Oliver must slay him, unfortunately.

This is how the fairytale begins.

And it runs its track, with a few shimmering changes woven into the plot; of course. Lilly and Oliver were never the ones to be conventional, really, and it was almost expected in an unexpected kind of way that it is Lilly who ends up saving herself by abusively yanking her brunet friend to dance floor with her instead of the ugly, unfortunate dragon-boy rearing his head. It's nothing, really, just a little twist in the already established story.

But the smallest of things can destroy the bigger picture if you're not too careful. And they're not, but they're young and too blind to care; so, it's all right, in a sense.

...

Lilly sighs when the dragon recoils and sinks away. Oliver notices, in his usual absent-minded way, that she's still clinging onto him when it's not necessary anymore. It sorta feels nice too, he decides.

"I thought he'd never leave," she breathes softly, peering up at him with her green-blue eyes.

Oliver smiles awkwardly because he isn't sure if he's supposed to leave next. The way she's holding onto him says no, but he's a boy and he can't be too certain about things like this.

Her head is resting gently on the tip of his shoulder and his nostrils flare at the pleasing apple orchid smell that immediately hits them. It brings his vision to a woody, green pasture place. Somewhere far away from Malibu. Like Georgia, Montana, the Carolinas; Tennessee.

It makes him feel like he's finally at home.

"Thanks Oliver, you're a real lifesaver." She fumbles with her words, which means she must be wanting to say something else; something more, but can't.

He wants to shrug but remembers last minute that her head is still placed shyly on his shoulder, so he says instead, "no problem." _You kinda did the saving yourself though. I wouldn't have thought to dance with you instead. But I still liked it. I liked it a lot, actually._ "Anytime."

...

Oliver and Lilly have a history, much like Prince Phillip and Aurora.

They're childhood friends, but not really by choice both of them will admit. Oliver didn't really _like_ Lilly, per say, he just liked girls. Girls with pretty hair and eyes, and her blonde locks had caught his eye in the sea of brunettes. And Lilly, with green filling her vision, had fallen in love with - no, not the charming prince - but the array of colors in his crayon box, and so their friendship, among other things (their mothers squawking like birds of their 'future wedding' and 'future children'), begins.

It is written somewhere that girls will marry boys like their father, and Lilly doesn't want to. She really, really doesn't. Because her father has an uneasy, coy air about him, and she tells Oliver that he isn't anything like that.

But Oliver doesn't know if he entirely agrees with her, though.

Because Lilly's dad likes to look at other women and Oliver… well… Oliver wishes he wasn't consistently compared to Prince Phillip. Because he certainly is not some perfect prince and he doesn't know if he'd willingly slay a dragon on his own accord for his princess-_Sorry_.

Sorry Princess Lilly.

...

At first, Oliver finds it quite strange and a bit terrifying as he takes a seat in Hannah's pretty, new limo.

He feels out of place in this foreign world of silver lights, clothes and items tinted with green that only he can see, and white-blue teeth clenched together. There is little throb of detachment planted in his heart as arrogant laughter thrills his ears, and he looks at Hannah and Lola sadly because, you know, it's much worse to become disconnected to a friend then lose them completely. There's a difference that you might not understand until it actually happens to you. Because when you lose someone, you just _lose_ them, and when you become disconnected with them, you begin to remember what they used to be like, and try so hard to forget what they are now.

And Oliver isn't fond of remembering in general, because then he's reminded of what he's without and what he's left with; what he's got - which sometimes he thinks, at the earliest of hours or darkest of nights, isn't a lot.

He glances at himself in the reflection of the dark windows and he sees a soiled, undeserving boy.

And when he looks at Miley (and not Hannah, oddly), he sees a pretty, clean girl; a Lady.

Another tale is born.

...

She doesn't need to say much to Oliver because he knows what she's thinking by her animated expression.

And he sorta feels like she _knows_ about him and Lilly by the way she pretends that she doesn't. But in the end she's supportive, surprisingly, and he's glad, kind of.

"So you're not upset about me and Lilly?" he asks; wants to clarify.

She cocks an eyebrow, as if to say 'you're really asking me that?'.

And yes, yes he is.

"Of course not," she smiles, teeth and all. "Actually, I was beginning to wonder when ya'll would figure out you two were perfect yourselves."

"Lilly kind of got the ball rolling," he admits quietly.

Miley smirks. "Figured that much."

Oliver then finds himself becoming ill at the thought of how much he likes Lilly and how much pressure of being Prince Oliver increasingly grew. They correlated with one another and his stomach turned at the discovery.

"Is that wrong?"

She takes a moment to pause, think his question over, and gradually shakes her head. "No, that's… _Lilly_."

He smells something familiar and watches as Miley slips on her new apple-scented lipgloss.

Maybe Miley is ill too.

...

It always occurred to Oliver that, yes, something was very different about Miley Stewart.

He couldn't distinguish the specific, nitty-gritty detail of it, but he has an idea. It could've been her peculiar blue eyes that are just _blue_, not another shade in sight unlike Lilly's that have hues of green pirouetting with the blue; or his that are a dull brown. Maybe it's that thick accent of hers or her dainty; tiny, tiny wrists. Perhaps it's her ability to carry an arrogant charm that created such irony it would have the greatest philosophers trembling at her teenage feet.

And then there's that itching factor that she was a girl by day and a popstar by night, too. But Oliver always pushes the particular determinant away.

Hannah and Miley are two separate people.

Hannah's two-dimensional. Simple as that.

Miley's a semi-clean girl who adores her deceased mother's affections, thinks a little too highly of herself at times, and gets in the stickiest of situations that Oliver finds himself saving her from more than once; like a realistic fairytale, if that makes any sense. Which Oliver finds isn't, because that's an oxymoron.

Fairytales aren't meant to be realistic one bit, after all.

...

With Oliver and Lilly, they're like Sleeping Beauty: childhood friends at first turned into eventual lovers, but with Oliver and Miley, they're sorta like Lady and the Tramp: a boy who didn't have to fight a whole lot - if at all - to win the lady's affection, and, secretly, Oliver always preferred the latter movie to the former.

...

And that leaves Oliver stuck between a rock and hard place - or however that saying goes. It doesn't really matter because, at the end of the day, you know what he means, and regardless if he gets the quote right or not, you understand.

And it's understanding that he hasn't quite mastered yet.

Oliver Oken thinks Miley is great - amazing, even. She's a good friend; reachable with her un-popstar mistakes. You can watch those celebrities make mistakes on tv all you want, but you'll never consider any of them normal; human, until you become apart of their mistakes firsthand. And she gives him lots and lots of hope - what kind of hope, he isn't too sure. It's nice though. And when Oliver tries to think of her more, he finds himself unable too. He doesn't know why, either, but he supposes he's not meant to.

Oliver's also decently sure that he likes Lilly and her pretty yellow hair that reminds him of Malibu's constant sun that kisses his flesh tan, and her green-blue eyes that look like oceans he's surrounded with, and, most of all, her apple scent that brings him to the country, to all the places he's mentioned before (Georgia, Montana, the Carolinas; Tennessee) and makes him feel like home; which, also, worries him a bit. - _Why does he belong to places so far away_? - But he has some difficulty pinpointing why it does, and its turning into a bad habit for him, but he gives up eventually because, you know, there's no use trying to figure out something that you know you never will. Because then you can't tell what the truth is and what is simply your assumptions anymore. And that's dangerous water someone like Oliver shouldn't tread.

Oliver doesn't know why he's become so mixed up and confused.

He just doesn't want to be charming or dirty anymore. He just wants to be Oliver again. But with Lilly and Miley, he thinks he never will be.

And those fairytales, _those fairytales_, they never really end, do they?

_i was in the wrong place at the right time/looking for answers/baby, you were the spotlight_


End file.
